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Book Reviews

debate of the role of these units and how they have been used until the present.His examination of the Texas 36th Division is anchored in this context.Some problems slow the narrative, however. The author introduces manynames that are difficult to track; a list would be useful. Photographs and mapscould be better incorporated; maps used do not directly correspond to theactions described. Further, reading the level of detail in the latter half of thebook sometimes resembles the "slow slog" of the battles that Brager describes (p.144). Nevertheless there is much of value here: a thought-provoking discussionof the evolution of the American military, the wealth of first-person accounts,and an extensive bibliography (reflecting a vast survey of the secondary litera-ture and primary documents). As Brager intends, he creates an interesting pro-file of this unit, whose experience and accomplishments reflect those of manyAmerican World War I and II divisions.Tempe Hzstorical Museum JOHN AKERSBroken Trusts: The Texas Attorney General Versus the Oil Industry, 1889-1909. ByJonathan W. Singer. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. Pp.xiii+344. List of illustrations, list of abbreviations, acknowledgments, intro-duction, epilogue, appendix, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 1-58544-160-0. $49.95, cloth.)Broken Trusts is the history of twenty years of judicial, political, and economicactivities revolving around the Standard Oil company's illegal, monopolistic,business practices in Texas. The author, who of necessity has legal expertise,reveals the political and economic motives of the plaintiffs, especially the state'sattorneys general, as well as the desires of defendant corporations in various law-suits and trials.Convoluted maneuvering and testimony, the bane of legal histories, is ever pre-sent, and marked by predictable alleged memory lapses of key Standard officials,but the author keeps it interesting and relevant with numerous revelations. Oneex-official of Waters-Pierce, the Standard subsidiary that pretended to be inde-pendent, turned state's witness, but proved less than helpful when he alteredcompany documents and accepted pay for his testimony. Waters-Pierce tried toquash an affidavit on the grounds that a woman could not serve as a notary pub-lic, but the judge ruled that there was no constitutional ban and women had heldsuch offices for seventeen years. A momentary stumble occurs when a Missouriattorney of that time, as well as the author, get embroiled in arguments about the"treaty" admitting Texas to the Union (p. 177), but the treaty, of course, wasvoted down and Texas was admitted by joint resolution of both houses ofCongress. By 1904 Standard's policy was to back away from the Texas trouble,and when one of its officials became de facto president of Waters-Pierce, he triedto comply with the state's anti-trust laws. Henry Pierce, whose rapacity evenStandard underestimated, quickly used his executive control to fire him. In 1909Waters-Pierce was finally expelled from the state and had to pay a penalty of over$1,6oo,ooo, but the criminal case against Henry Pierce was tossed out.